


Pink Camellia

by FeyduBois



Series: Tsubaki [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: M/M, Shance Flower Exchange 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-16
Updated: 2018-05-16
Packaged: 2019-05-07 16:12:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14674707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FeyduBois/pseuds/FeyduBois
Summary: Lance is still getting used to having a bodyguard, Shiro is still getting used to living.





	Pink Camellia

**Author's Note:**

> Pinch-hit for the 2018 shance flower exchange. This was going to be much longer and more complicated, but I ran out of time. More to come later perhaps?

~*~ ~*~ ~*~

“My prince, we should not be this far into the town without a proper escort.” Shiro repeated for the fifth time that evening.

“Oh, it’ll be fine. You told me Kyoto is very safe, and that’s why we’re disguised. No one will recognize me.”

Shiro frowned deeply. True, Lance was dressed in common clothing, simple light blue _kimono_ , however, his skin and eyes clearly gave him away as a foreigner, and few foreigners aside from diplomats made it as far inland as Kyoto and everyone knew of the Altean princess and her brother. Shiro’s job as bodyguard meant that he would be the one at fault if anything should happen to Lance, and he took that very seriously.

“If you want anything - clothing, jewellery, food - anything at all, we can send a servant to the market to buy it for you.”

“But it’s a night market!” Lance insisted. “I’ve never been to one before, and this is the first of the year. I really don’t see what anyone would get out of harming or kidnapping me.”

“Ransom, for one.” Shiro pointed out.

Lance made an exuberant hand gesture, “From who? Your emperor? I am hardly my sister, she could be worth something. Besides, I trust you to protect me.”

Shiro was ready to argue otherwise, that there was always someone out to make easy yen, but at Lance’s comment he became suddenly aware of the pinned sleeve of his _haori_ , concealing where his right arm had been. Lance trusted him for protection? Even with his… incompleteness?

“I will do my best,” he said.

“I would expect nothing less… now let’s get some street meat!”

Together Shiro and Lance descended the steps into the street, illuminated with lanterns and filled with milling bodies. They followed their noses to a vendor’s cart where some form of roasted meat on sticks was being sold. Lance purchased four sticks and tipped almost double as much as he had paid.

“You shouldn’t flash your money like that,” Shiro whispered as Lance led him to a low stone wall they could sit on and enjoy their food.

“I’ll keep that in mind… here.” Lance offered him two of the sticks.

“For me?” Shiro awkwardly held both sticks with his left hand while Lance double-fisted his. “Thank you, but…”

“This is delicious!” Lance said between mouthfuls. “What kind of meat is this?”

“Chicken I think?” Shiro said, examining it. He didn’t eat any. “I’m not sure.”

“You don’t want it?”

“I… I haven’t eaten meat in over three years.” Shiro had to admit that the meat didn’t smell appealing; in fact, it made his stomach turn, “The monks I lived with are vegetarians.”

“Oh! I’m so sorry, I forgot. I’ll take them if you don’t want them.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude by refusing…”

“It’s my fault, I knew but I forgot.” Lance took the sticks from Shiro. “We’ll find you something else, just let me finish eating these first.”

“Please don’t make yourself sick with it.”

“Me?” Lance scoffed. “Never. Just ask Allura how much meat I can put away.”

“Sounds like my brother and noodles,” Shiro commented with a wry grin. Their shared experience of having siblings was always good common ground.

Lance finished his meat, they found some _moch_ i cakes for Shiro, and then strolled through the vendors stalls. Lance accumulated many items and Shiro was laden with packages before long. Most of them were gifts to send home: fans, ceramics, dyed cloth, small paintings, and a few were gifts for Allura. Lance purchased an excessively expensive hairpin for his sister as a wedding gift. Shiro paused at the jewellery stall as well, examining some beautifully made _netsuke_ carved of semi-precious stones.

“What are those?” Lance asked. “I see them worn on belts.”

“ _Netsuke_. They’re like… charms? You hang them with your pouches or weapon sheaths. I guess they were originally counterweights? They’re just decorative, really.”

“Do you like them?” Lance asked.

“These are very nicely made… look at how beautifully they’re carved.”

“They are lovely…” Lance watched Shiro’s gaze as it lingered on an onyx cat _netsuke_. He turned to the vendor, “How much is this one? I’d like to get it for my friend.”

“You shouldn’t!” Shiro said, but with a smile Lance purchased the little charm and removed it immediately from the package to affix to Shiro’s belt.

The vendor bowed low, smiling widely, glad that his wares were appreciated. “This artist is very good. Their skill is truly admirable.”

“Thank you my lord,” Shiro lowered his head into a grateful bow.

“Enough of that, you call me Lance, remember? Come on, let’s walk awhile by the river.”

The full moon shone on the water, providing some light as they wandered along the stone path. Lance’s shoulders shook with a slight shiver from the night air, still chilly with the last vestiges of winter. Shiro took a blanket that Lance had purchased out of the bag and laid it over his shoulders.

“Thank you Shiro, you know I’m used to a warmer climate.”

“An island, correct?”

“Yes, tropical. The beach goes on and on…” Lance sighed. “I sometimes feel a little bit closed-in here, in the mountains, I’ll admit. Not that it isn’t beautiful! The buildings are really nice and so well designed, no space is wasted, and the gardens are amazing.”

“Just wait a month when the _sakura_ bloom. We can visit the temples then, with an escort.”

“I look forward to it,” Lance said, sleepily. He suddenly came alert, “Oh! What flower is that?”

Lance rushed ahead to where a camellia leaned against a fence, spilling pink petals across the ground. His fingers sunk into the voluptuous blooms eagerly. He smelled them, but they had little scent, although they were lovely, thick and soft.

“Those are camellia. _Camellia japonica_.” Shiro’s mind went to the botanical name he’d learned from Ryou, a monk with botanical inclinations, but then to his wife’s funeral, the heaps of white camellia’s they’d covered her with… so many pure white petals, layered upon her body, hundreds of flowers gathered from the mountain-sides by her sisters, and the accusatory eyes upon him, the shock of white hair on his forehead that marked the battle, the battle they’d lost, she’d been lost to…

It had been a little over five years since; it was past, but Shiro was slow to move onwards.

“ _Tsubaki_ in our language. Winter rose, I think it’s sometimes called in English?”

“They’re so full!” Lance plucked a few, but found that they fell apart in his hands. At last one, its petals held intact because it was not yet in full bloom, found its way into the fold of his _kimono_ and he wore it with pride. Shiro knew more of the significance of camellia blooms, that white was for mourning, that women did not wear them because they thought they would not bear sons if they wore them in their hair, and other strange facts of the language of flowers. This boy liked flowers, and camellia was the first in this region, the earliest bloom, of the year.

“They are very beautiful. Different colours have different meanings, I’ve heard,” Shiro said. “Like with roses.”

“And pink?” Lance asked, his eyes turning to Shiro, expectant, curious.

“Blossoming love.”

Pink lips suddenly struck Shiro’s, just a quick peck, like children in puppy love, or a long-wed couple saying thank-you. He froze in the spot as Lance drew back.

“I’m sorry… I was forward…”

“No,” Shiro frowned, clasping Lance’s arm with his left, his only, hand. An unreadable expression drew across his brow. “I… it’s been a long time.”

“Years?” Lance asked.

“Many years. I just… this isn’t appropriate.”

“Who cares,” Lance said, “Let’s see where it goes?”

Shiro noticed, from the corner of his eye, curtains parting as a couple left a tea-shop, their arms linked and their heads pressed together. “ _Camellia japonic_ is ornamental, but did you know that _camellia sinensis_ is actually tea?”

“Tea?”

"Tea."

"Just tea."

Shiro nodded, “The close cousin of this flower is one of the major things that brings our world together in trade. Of course, sugar and spice too, but tea… tea brings people together. Will you share a cup with me?”

“I’d be honoured.”

Shiro held open the curtains and Lance ducked in, smiling and nodding as the host greeted him with an eager “Irasshaimase!”

Shiro nodded as well and they were led to a table where Shiro ordered for them camellia tea. Green tea, infused with camellia blossoms.

The air was so tense you could slice it with a butter knife.

Lance sipped his tea, Shiro slowly took a gentle sip of his, his grey eyes fixed upon Lance the entire time.

“I don’t know what to do,” Lance admitted.

“It’s just tea,” Shiro laughed. He took the pot between them and expertly, one hand upon the lid, poured them each another cup.

“What do we talk about? Is this… intimate?”

“In a way?” Shiro admitted, “We could be arranging a murder though, or talking about how our week in the service as soldiers was… it’s just tea.”

“I…” Lance went into his broken Japanese, “I don’t know what this is, but this place is very nice.”

“We can speak English,” Shiro said. “It’s less likely to be detected. I’m afraid I don’t know Spain-go very well.”

“It’s fine,” Lance laughed. “I’m a diplomat. I know all the trade languages ‘tolerably well’ as Coran would put it.”

“Good,” Shiro nodded.

“Is that all?” Lance asked, “I kissed you!”

Shiro gazed pointedly at Lance through the steam rising over his cup, “Do you wish to be lovers?”

“I… I mean. Yes, of course, but…”

“Then we can do so,” Shiro agreed, directing a soft smile into his cup. “Unless you are not comfortable with that?”

“No! This just... isn’t how it’s done back home.”

“We’re a visiting diplomat and his bodyguard enjoying tea at the teashop, a cultural hub… unless you are uninterested?”

Lance thought on this, and then lifted his cup to his lips, grinning like a madman as he said in his most disinterested tone, “I am very interested.”

“Good,” Shiro said, his feet finding their way out of the _geta_ he wore and onto Lance’s toes and heels and calves.

~*~ ~*~ ~*~


End file.
